


They Come With Their Weather Hanging 'round Them

by Mytha



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Gen, Haunted Houses, Huddling For Warmth, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 10:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19333141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytha/pseuds/Mytha
Summary: On a mission in the forest near Serault Morrigan and Vivienne must seek shelter in an abandoned chateau.





	They Come With Their Weather Hanging 'round Them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thereinafter (isyche)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/gifts).



Walls weary, the life-force trapped within the chateau stirs. There! Another hesitant step on sodden floor boards. The will awakes and races through rooms filled with covered furniture, hidden treasures, insects and dust. 

The mirrors are the eyes. Master-crafted by the artisans of Serault they offer glimpses between the worlds, between the immaterial and the material. Luckily the chateau has many of them.

Outside, night is falling. Two figures have entered the chateau and disturbed the spirit of the place. It no longer knows how it came to be there. Its faculties have crumbled along with the rotten beams and bricks. It only knows that these are intruders, rousing it from dreams of comfortable oblivion. Autumn leaves have blown inside in their wake. 

“'Tis curious nobody has found this place before.”

One of the intruders speaks. Through the cobwebbed mirrors of the vestibule, the view reveals her to be a rather disheveled, dark-haired woman, whose rags expose expanses of pale skin. Globes of light dance around her, sickly illumination revealing more of herself than the chamber around her. 

“I can feel some remnants of magic awaken within. Shall we see what awaits?” 

The other, a much more fashionable appearance, noble head crowned with a Hennin, moves out of her way fluidly. “After you, I insist.” 

Steps on creaking floors return itches the chateau last felt long ago. 

Close up at the glass, the shabby woman looks less so but still too wild for polite society. The eyes are piercing, yellow and strange. She appears tired and scratches run down her neck. On the other side of the vestibule, the elegant woman casts a protective barrier. 

“We will do well not to disturb anything, my dear. This might serve as shelter, but it may be as dangerous as the forest itself.” 

The other woman scoffs and heads over to the door leading to the grand staircase. Too late to shut it now. A floorboard pops and shifts upward just in time to catch the woman's foot. 

“Blast and damnation!”

The barrier catches the woman's fall, the chateau notices with some regret. 

“Best to watch your step, dear.” 

The dark-haired woman swears again. 

The chateau allows them to explore, begrudgingly but curious, studying their progress. So long has it slumbered, so long since it felt the giddy heartbeat of living things as complex as these two women are. It would be only too easy to cause their hearts to stop, their breaths to cease. A shift of a balustrade, a tip of a column – they are so fragile and yet powerful. 

It can feel their power like it can feel the sun's heat on its roofs by day. It is much like the power it has felt within its first inhabitants. Cackling magic, a blue flame shining faintly like candlelight around them. 

Feeling the two women's hunger for knowledge, the chateau unlocks the door to its library, waiting.

“It may not be wise to stay too long in a place like this.”

“Shelter is a scarce commodity in this forest. I prefer to deal with whatever we might encounter within these walls to what befell the Inquisition's scouts outside.” 

“The forest holds the greater danger, I agree.” 

“We will set up camp here then, for tonight.”

Ancient walls quiver in confusion. These guests are unexpected. At least they have proven themselves unlike the visitors the chateau remembers before the long, silent solitude. Treasure-seekers, ruffians and vagabonds – bandits out for its treasures smashing, tearing – it had shown them the error of their ways. 

The beds are unusable, of course, their matter decomposing or decomposed. The women set up their bedrolls in a corner of a relatively undisturbed room. 

“Some spell seems to have kept the mold from growing in this place.”

“Darling, there were moss and mushrooms in the grand ballroom.”

“The skylight shattered. Nature persists.”

“A lot of the chimneys looked damaged. I do not suggest trying to light a fire.”

The wards they set are unnecessary, of course, mostly ineffective. The chateau watches them shiver as they lie down under blankets much too coarse and threadbare to be serviceable. Underneath them, the long-starved floor feasts on their bodies' heat. 

Once the chateau knew how to make itself more attractive to these creatures. Habitable, they called it. Now it cannot remember who kept the chimneys clear, the fires burning. Did it care for those things? No, there were others to do these things for it. Memories cling like dust to cobwebs in the attic. Patches are missing where the timbers rotted away. 

In the still of the night, the two bodies move closer by necessity, trying to cling to their departing warmth. 

Maybe it has been too greedy. It should not take it all. The spirit leaves them, rushes through halls and halls of mirrors, giddy with newly-stolen power. 

When some of the morning sun's rays break through the once thick foliage, now thinned by approaching winter, the chateau lets their heat run through its stones. It has been idle too long, neglecting its need for life. 

The guests stir and rise. 

_Come_. The chateau wills. _Explore!_

“We should not linger. The magic I sense has grown stronger.” 

“I do not like this place.” 

The chateau bristles, beams creaking. 

“I have the feeling we are being watched.” 

Doors slam, windows quiver. 

“Hello?” 

“You are wasting your time. No spirit will answer.” 

“And what do you suggest?”

Locks turn, floorboards buckle and groan. 

“Leaving this place – with haste!”

Searing pain as doors are blasted with magical force. Moth-eaten carpets ensnare and snap at running feet before they are burned away. 

It thought these guests were different, but they are just like the other intruders – worse! Plaster falls, beams crack and collapse, raining sodden rubble down on the fleeing figures. The chateau casts open its windows, letting the wind howl through its empty halls. A huge rush of wind and debris propels the women out of its front door, which slams violently behind them. 

After a moment, the windows shut slowly as well. Shadows dance like reflections. 

The intruders lie still for a while, then rise, one helping the other to stand. 

The chateau wraps itself in ivy and thorns once more as it watches them leave. 

In time the windows dull to the light.

**Author's Note:**

> I O U an actual story about Morrigan and Vivienne in Serault. Please accept this ill-tempered, ancient, Orlesian house for now?
> 
> Thank you to amarmeme for the beta!


End file.
